The recently released 10.04 version of Ubuntu is the third Long Term Support (LTS) version Canonical has released. I installed this new version on four of my laptops (2 netbooks, 1 normal laptop, 1 portable desktop replacement), and here's my impression of it.

I have been using 10.4 for a while without any problems, until one hour ago, that is. I updated the system, and now GDM will not start and can only login to a terminal.

It turned out to be that in my attempt to remove Evolution (I hate this damn bloated program), the ubuntu-desktop package got removed too (and I did not notice). Why on earth would uninstalling an email client remove the desktop components?

Why on earth would uninstalling an email client remove the desktop components?

And that is one of the things I dislike about metapackages. If you remove a piece of the metapackage, the whole of it can/may be removed. It has happened to me on my occasions. Never had it affect the stability of my system, but it has removed things I wanted to keep.